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Monday, December 20, 2010

A few weeks ago, Kolcraft contacted me via Twitter. They saw my Twitter profile which mentions that I'm pregnant with PD and were interested in featuring me on their blog for Mom Mondays. Their representative, Michelle, was so sweet to me and I felt very honored to be featured!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

And I often feel like I’m full-term! For some reason I feel very large with this pregnancy, even though I’m about the same size as I was at 30 weeks during my last pregnancy. I think it’s because everything I do is requiring more energy and I feel like I’m always exerting myself. Compared with my previous pregnancies, I’m having a little more trouble getting up and out of chairs, walking for long distances, and going up and down stairs.

The baby is doing well. We learned at my last appointment that the blood clot in my placenta had completely disappeared, so we no longer have to worry about that. The baby is active and has fairly predictable patterns of activity. He is most active in the early mornings and late evenings. If I wake up in the middle of the night, he’s usually moving. Thankfully, I can sleep through most of it! He doesn’t seem to like it when I lay on my right side – he will kick against the bed until I turn over. When I’m on my left side, I’m usually against Jason, and so he’ll kick against Jason until I move away. Apparently, he doesn’t like things touching my stomach because he also kicks against things like Jason’s hand or my desk at work. It makes me happy that he is so active. There’s something very reassuring about feeling him move around.

I’m having issues with a few things right now. One, my legs…they ACHE almost every night. This is obviously a PD thing, not a pregnancy thing, but it’s really annoying. If I keep my legs moving, the pain is bearable, but constantly keeping my legs moving is annoying. Thankfully, the heating pad usually helps.

The second issue is also a PD issue: choking. Parkinson’s patients often have trouble swallowing, which can cause choking. I had several choking issues before getting pregnant (maybe 5-6 in total). But over the last few months, my choking has definitely increased. It’s a little frightening for me. Most of the time, I get choked, cough a couple of times and then I’m okay. Still, it’s a little unnerving when it happens, especially when I’m alone.

The third issue is a pregnancy issue…I think? I have been waking up during the night vomiting. Not waking up needing to vomit, but waking up because I’m already vomiting. It’s gross, and a little scary, especially in light of the choking issues I’ve been having! The vomiting doesn’t happen every night, but it’s happening several times a week. This happened a few times a couple of months ago and my doctor prescribed Protonix for acid reflux. I’ve been taking that for the last 3 months. So I don’t understand why it’s happening again now since I’m still taking the Protonix. It would seem like the Protnonix would help if this was caused by acid reflux. So it has me wondering if there is some other cause. Has anyone else had anything like this happen during pregnancy?

Overall, though, things are going well. Less than 10 weeks and then we meet our baby boy!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

A few weeks ago, my husband came home from HH Gregg with a new toy. Most husbands would have brought home a new TV or surround sound system. My sweet husband brought home something way better. A Dyson vacuum cleaner. The one with the ball. The one I drool over when I see the commercials for Dyson on TV. It was on sale for a great price and I was excited to try it out!

Dyson makes incredible vacuum cleaners. I bought a refurbished Dyson DC07 Low Reach Vacuum in 2004. It worked as well as a new vacuum and while it came with a 6 month warranty, I’ve never had any problems with it. It still runs but the new one is several pounds lighter and more compact, making it easier for me to carry up and down the stairs, which is the reason my husband purchased it for me.

While I love my old Dyson, I love the new one even more! The ball technology makes it so easy to maneuver. A button on the handle allows you to easily turn on the brushes when you move from hard floor surfaces to carpet.

The Dyson also comes with a telescoping wand. It’s very long – about 16 feet. It can be used with one of two attachments to reach areas normal vacuum cleaners wouldn’t be able to. Think cobwebs in corners, ceiling fans, the tops your kitchen cabinets, etc. You can clean your baseboards without bending over or underneath your couch without moving it. The thing I love best about the wand is that by using the stair attachment, I can stand at the bottom of the stairs and vacuum most of my staircase without having to carry the vacuum up and stop at each individual stair. I’m somewhat of a clean freak, so I could go on and on listing places in my house (besides floors) that the Dyson helps me clean, but you get the picture!

Dyson vacuums are bagless. If you have never used a bagless vacuum cleaner, this might sound messy. But believe me, the Dyson bagless canister is so much easier to empty than the previous bag cleaners I used before discovering Dyson. You just hold the canister over your garbage can and with the press of a button, the contents drop straight into the garbage can. And you know how when a traditional vacuum cleaner’s bag fills up, it starts to lose suction? Not with Dyson. These vacuums have strong suction and don’t lose power. Even when the canister starts to fill up, the suction stays the same, but it’s really nice to be able to empty it after each vacuuming session. When I had a vacuum with bags, I felt like I had to “get my money’s worth” out of the bag and fill it up before changing to a new bag.

Dysons come with lifetime HEPA filters. You’re supposed to wash them about every 6 months. They just pop out, rinse clean, and then air dry for about 24 hours.

I highly recommend the Dyson vacuum cleaners. They are durable, powerful, and easy to use.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Our anniversary is May 25. We went away the weekend after our anniversary to our favorite place, the beach! It was a wonderful, relaxing, fun weekend and we really enjoyed it! A few weeks after we got back, on June 24, I found out I was pregnant! I was thrilled…and a little shocked. I have to say that I really did not expect to get pregnant that quickly! When I told Jason, he was so excited. I have never seen a daddy-to-be get so excited! It made me so happy to see him so excited!

On July 7, I went to the doctor for my first ultrasound. It was wonderful to see the baby’s heartbeat. Then we met with the doctor and got some not so great news. The doctor told us that there is a 2cm blood clot in my placenta. Knowing that the baby was only about 1 cm made me very scared. I’ve never heard of a blood clot in the placenta, but the fact that the clot was bigger than the baby terrified me. Dr. Simmons said that clot might resolve itself. He said about 50% of clots do. But there’s also the possibility that something bad might happen – I could start bleeding and lose the baby. I was pretty terrified. Jason looked up more information that night and his additional information scared me even more. Nothing was positive or good.

On August 4th, I went back to the doctor. The doctor couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. Since I was only 11 weeks, I didn’t get too concerned. I knew it was early. He sent us for a sonar to check on the baby. I didn’t get scared until the sonar started and I couldn’t see the baby’s heartbeat…but it was there! Such a sweet sight…and so grateful to get to see the baby again! So tiny and such a sweet miracle! The blood clot was smaller but still there.

We found out that the baby is a boy on September 29th. We had previously been told at a 13 week ultrasound that the baby was probably a girl. But since it was early, we knew that was not set in stone. You should have seen how excited and happy Jason was to hear “boy”…he jumped out of his chair when the sonar tech told us (and showed us!) that the baby is a boy! Jason had thought from the beginning that the baby would be a boy, so he kept saying "I knew it! I told you!"It was great!

The bad news we got that day is that the clot was still there. Smaller, but still present. But, everything else looked right: arms, legs, kidneys, heart, etc. The baby shows no signs of Down's or other abnormalities and this baby is a mover...he was squirming all over the place during the ultrasound! Can't wait to meet my sweet boy!